Different Circles

“How about we ramp things back up a bit?” Jake asked the crowd. “Does that sound good to you?”

It sounded just fine to them. Ted gave a four count and they launched into the extended intro for Put Me Out There, Jake’s second hit from his last CD, a hard-driving, complex, and somewhat cynical tune about how music was delivered to the masses by the sale of advertising to radio stations. In the original recording, Jake had played the lead guitar and the solo while Celia had backed him up with her drop-D tuned Stratocaster. Here, Lenny played lead and Jake played rhythm while Ted pounded out the complex beat, Natalie added fills and backing melody with the violin, and G kept up a steady secondary rhythm with the synthesizer. The crowd loved it, many of them standing up and waving their arms as he sang it out.

They love us, Jake thought warmly as more positive energy came flowing in. They fucking love us. We really do belong up here.

Forty-five feet away, Matt Tisdale was having much the same thought. He had come out to the special VIP section for one reason: because he thought that Jake was going to fail, was going to be booed off the stage for daring to play his mellow, alternative rock and easy-listening crap at what was primarily a heavy metal music festival. Matt wanted to see that happen, had been eagerly anticipating it, but he now realized that quite the opposite was actually occurring here.

They fucking love his shit, he thought in wonder. Not just like, not just ‘can get into it’, but fucking love! People were standing and dancing and waving their hands around. They were singing along with his tunes. Matt had even seen a couple of bitches crying when Jake had sung Insignificance. Fucking crying!

Matt could not help but acknowledge and respect how Jake had played the crowd and hooked them. He had opened the set with one of his hardest-driving tunes and one of his most powerful backbeats, thus giving the fans out there what they had primarily come to see—hard rock—before gradually transitioning down into the more mellow shit. And then, after hitting the very top of the mellow meter with Insignificance, just when it seemed like things might start getting cumbersome, he had kicked right back in with another hard-rocking number to reengage them. And, though Matt had not seen them, he smelled the Nerdlys in the background. No one else could have tuned in sound in a venue like this to such perfection. All of the instruments and mikes and the drum set itself were almost exactly in balance and adjusted so that every individual instrument could be heard, every word of Jake’s lyrics could be understood. Even the backup singers—who the fuck brings dedicated backup singers to a goddamn heavy metal festival?—could be perfectly heard and understood. And it was quite obvious that Jake and his band had rehearsed extensively for this performance. He could quite plainly feel the teamwork and camaraderie they shared as they meshed like a well-oiled machine.

Where did he even get these musicians? Matt wondered bitterly. He recognized Pauline as one of the backup singers, but he had no idea whatsoever who everyone else was. But goddamn if they couldn’t play. The dude on the lead guitar—Jake was apparently too pussy to play out his own solos and riffs—was talented, laying down the licks with mechanical precision and artistry. The bass player was solid as well, keeping the rhythm perfectly and transitioning seamlessly through the tempo changes. And the fat guy on the drums! He was pounding out some complex shit up there. Where the fuck had he been when Matt was looking for a percussionist? Who were these people and where had Jake found them?

Put Me Out There ended in a finale of distorted guitar riffs by Jake, a wind-down solo by the lead guitarist, and a flurry of pounding beats by the drummer. The crowd cheered again, the sound of it a physical thing that Matt could feel in his chest. When it began to die down a bit, Jake stoked it by stepping to his microphone and introducing the lead guitarist.

“Lenny Harris on the Telecaster!” Jake shouted. “Lenny Harris. Give it up for him!”

They gave it up. Matt still had no idea who the guitarist was. The name Lenny Harris meant absolutely nothing to him.